Save Kiln Meadow Campaign (SKiM)
Spring Wood is IWG's spiritual home. Those of us who visit and work in it recognise that it is a living entity – a unique community of plants, insects, animals, birds and fungi. Walking through it, and standing in the ancient lime tree – maybe a thousand years old – gives a sense of calm and peace rarely to be found. Facing a possible cancer early this year, it was to Spring Wood that I took the problem and from Spring Wood that I got the strength to fight it. Fortunately I was OK.
Spring Wood is always under threat whilst there are people who cannot relate to wildlife, nor recognise the historic importance of such a place, which has supported our forbears by providing fodder for animals, wood for construction, fruit and nuts for food, plants for healing and charcoal for the hearth and kiln. And the threat is greater now than ever – not just from the tossers of litter and the riders of motorbikes, but from two local councils, Babergh and Ipswich. The threat is from the development of land immediately adjacent to the wood. This area, known to us as Kiln Meadow, to the planners as Thorington Hall Area F, is likely to be sold for development very soon. This is despite the fact that a large population of toads lives in, or migrates across, the meadow and that it provides the streams that feed Bobbits Lane wet meadows, and is bounded by three County wildlife sites and/or local nature reserves, and despite the fact that toads are now a nationally important species, and have protection under legislation which also recognises the need to preserve areas which have a mosaic of habitats such as we have here on the southern boundary of Ipswich.
This situation has come about because Ipswich, who own the land, applied to Babergh, for outline planning permission, which was granted in October 2007. Babergh appear to have taken no account of wildlife, and ignored legislation and information on the toad population supplied by Suffolk Wildlife Trust. Ipswich planners are now hoping to sell the land to a developer, within a few months. It is likely that the toad population will be drastically affected by destruction of the habitat, as will Bobbits Lane wet meadows. With no toads for food, will the herons and egrets remain? Will the otter still live in a polluted Belstead Brook? Will the hobby fly above Kiln Meadow hunting for dragonflies if the meadow becomes a housing estate? And what will become of Spring Wood? Gradual incursions and the impact of concentrated local housing will see it reduced to a few scrubby trees between the houses and the A14, like the sad scruffy places that exist where once were the woods of my childhood in Essex.
Kiln Meadow is great place for wildlife, and for humans looking for a pleasant country walk on the edge of town. It won't be such a great place to live in, as it is within a few hundred metres of a sewage farm, and a line of pylons marches across it. So we've asked IBC to halt the sale, and to allow Kiln Meadow to be left to wildlife and walkers for ever.
Our campaign is called SKiM (Save Kiln Meadow) and we want to publicise it as much as possible. Please write to your local councillors, local papers, MPs.....anyone you can think of to publicise the threat to wildlife.
The executive of Ipswich Borough Council are likely to be discussing the fate of Kiln Meadow on 3rd November. For further information, see the SKiM website. We can save Kiln Meadow and Spring Wood – we have an uphill struggle, but it's worth it.
- Jen Jousiffe
Focus on Local Nature Reserves
The recently declared Mill Stream Nature Reserve, lying between Brendan Drive, Kesgrave and Foxhall Road is owned and managed by Suffolk Coastal District Council in partnership with Rushmere St. Andrew Parish Council and the Greenways Countryside Project.
The wider area was extensively used between the early 1800s and the 1920s as a military training area. One feature of this past, still visible today, is the old firing wall near the Glemham Drive entrance. A range extended back 800 yards towards Ipswich – the surviving wall held the targets, whilst the natural steep sandy slope behind would have stopped the bullets and musket balls.
Before the development of the Bixley farm housing estate, the wet valley would have been used for light grazing in the drier summer months. Current management work for wildlife simulates this previous regime by cutting the meadow areas and removing the cuttings to promote diversity of wildflowers.
The reserve is an extremely valuable site for a wide range of species, and adds value to the other semi-natural habitats in the area. The site itself has a range of habitats, including ponds, the stream, reedbed, wet fen, wildflower grassland, willow scrub, and ancient oak trees, as well as benefiting from the extensive areas of woodland and heathland to the east. As many as 70 species of birds have been recorded on the site in recent years, many of them notable species, such as Lesser spotted woodpecker, Hobby, Nightingale, Spotted flycatcher, Bullinch and Water rail. Water voles (a very threatened mammal) have also been seen using the ponds and stream. The reserve is home to good populations of slow worms and common lizards along with Common toads, Common frogs, Smooth newts and Great crested newts utilizing the ponds for breeding.
There are entrances to the site from Kentwell Close, Kelvedon Drive, Glemham Drive, Bixley Lane, Euston Avenue, Brendon Drive and via the public footpath to the east of the site. Cycle parking facilities are available at the Glemham Drive entrance. As well as visiting the reserve itself (the four stream crossings give a wide range of short circular walk opportunities), it is possible to explore further by using public paths crossing Foxhall Heath to the east and Rushmere Common to the west. The Parish Council promote the Jubilee Walk (lealets available from Rushmere St Andrew Parish Council), which links the Mill Stream to the Sandlings nature reserve and Rushmere Common.The Sandlings Millennium Walk (details from the Suffolk Coast and Heaths Unit – 01394 384948), from Kessingland to Ipswich, passes the northern end of the reserve.
River Clean-Up
Despite horrendous rainy weather, 130 intrepid volunteers turned up to help clear rubbish from the Gipping and Belstead Brook as well as carrying out practical wildlife habitat improvements. The divers in the Gipping in the town found the usual array of bikes, trolleys and kitchen appliances along with a much publicised rusty, sawn-off shotgun! Several large skips were filled with assorted rubbish and both rivers looked much the better for the effort. All the participants enjoyed a rather damp barbecue at the end of the day - with live music and lovely local food. The event will be reprised next September, and a smaller version (without divers - as the water will be too cold!) will be run in Clean Up Suffolk Fortnight in early April - please see the next newsletter for details.
The publicity surrounding the event has reached the Paul O'Grady Show, who have expressed an interest in doing a clear-up on the river of their own! This is likely to be a mid-week day in early October - please do contact the Greenways Project if you would like to get involved - and on the telly!!
I would like to give a very big thank you to all of you who withstood the weather and helped make the day a huge success yet again.
- James Baker, Greenways Project
New Local Nature Reserves!
Suffolk Coastal District Council have recently declared two new Local Nature Reserves in Rushmere St Andrew - Mill Stream LNR and Sandlings LNR. The declaration was marked with a celebration event on the Sandlings open space, where various activities focussed on butterflies were available for visitors. The Mill Stream site is described in more detail in this issue, the Sandlings will be featured in a future issue.
The sites are managed by the Greenways Project and SCDC with assistance from Rushmere St Andrew Parish Council. If you would like any more information about the reserves or would like to get involved in their management, please contact the Greenways Project. The Fungi event on Sunday 19th October (see programme) will explore these sites for their spectacular range of mushrooms and toadstools.
Just A Minute? – Well Perhaps 6 Minutes!
IWG is looking for a Secretary to take the minutes at our Committee Meetings which are held (in the evening) at the Stable Block at Holywells Park, usually about 6 times a year. Access to a computer to enable e-mailing of minutes main requirement, ability to spell useful but not essential!
Please think about it as we really do need some help. For more details please contact us
Focus on Local Nature Reserves
Continuing the features on the Local nature Reserves around Ipswich, this issue we look at:
Bobbits Lane Local Nature Reserve was declared by Ipswich Borough Council and Babergh District Council in 2005. The reserve comprises two main sites – Bobbits Lane Meadows and Ashground Plantation – totalling around 11 hectares (28 acres), stretching for about a kilometre along the Belstead Brook, in the heart of the informal country park known as Belstead Brook Park. Adjacent to the reserve are three other Local Nature Reserves: Spring Wood; Millennium Wood and Bourne Park Reedbed. This highlights how important the area is for wildlife biodiversity and local people alike.
The reserve has a very wide range of habitats in a relatively small area, including reedbed, open water, wet meadow, ponds, wet woodland and the Brook itself.
The Belstead Brook, although a small river, is a very significant watercourse in biodiversity terms – it is thought to be the only river in Eastern England to support genuine native Brown Trout, for example, and there are also populations of Water Vole and Otter. The wet, alder carr woodland is increasingly rare habitat – one of only two sites now remaining in the Borough of Ipswich and, like reedbed and wet meadow habitat, is a Biodiversity Action Plan Priority Habitat due to the range of wildlife it supports and the dwindling resource nationally.
Management work on the reserve includes cutting and baling of the drier meadow areas, scrub control on the wet meadows, maintaining water control structures, reducing the dominance of invasive tree species in the alder carr woodland, monitoring key species including otter holts (and building new ones!), improving paths and access facilities and continuing to improve on site interpretation.
The reserve is managed by the Greenways Project, on behalf of the owner, Ipswich Borough Council. The assistance of the Friends of Belstead Brook Park is extremely valuable and much appreciated, as is the input of a great many local volunteers who enable the reserve to continue to flourish.
If you would like to see the reserve’s management plan, or would like any further information about the site or the Friends of Belstead Brook Park, please do not hesitate to contact the Greenways Project on 01473 433995.
This is the very aptly named anti-littering campaign being run by BBC Radio Suffolk over the past few months. The campaign was launched at a clean up event at Spring Wood – or the A14 layby adjoining the Wood to be precise. Almost exactly a tonne of rubbish was collected by over 50 volunteers (including BBC staff, local Rotary Club members and IWG members) in almost 500 sacks!
The lay-by is used by lorry drivers, and as such suffers from certain types of waste – most notably bottles of urine – by the hundred!
As removing litter is now an unavoidable part of conservation volunteer work parties, IWG and the Greenways Project put their full support behind the campaign and there was considerable press coverage of the various clean up activities in early April.
We intend to re-invigorate the campaign in September when we have our, now annual “big rivers clean up” event.
The partnership between the Greenways Project and CSV has come to fruition and the grant award mentioned in the last newsletter has now resulted in the recruitment of a Project Officer to engage with local communities and get more people out volunteering in their local environment.
Margaret Regnault (IWG member and long term volunteer with Greenways and many other local environment groups) was the successful candidate and starts work in early June. Watch the local media for reports and information about what Margaret gets up to in the coming months and look out for the River Clean Up event in September when we would very much like your support!
